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Tuesday, 14 July 2015

President Buhari defers removal of fuel subsidies

After
six weeks of silence on the issue, President Muhammadu Buhari said
monday that his administration would not make any decision on the
clamour for the removal of fuel subsidies, adding, however, that his
government would handle the issue on their removal “with care”.

According
to the statement by Garba Shehu, the president’s Senior Special
Assistant, Media and Publicity, the president spoke after receiving a
briefing from the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and other agencies in the oil sector.

Shehu
said Buhari told the officials that he had so far received a lot of
submissions on the need to remove fuel subsidies but that he was still
carefully reviewing them.

He quoted Buhari as saying: “I have received many literature on the need to remove subsidies, but much of it has no depth.

“When
you touch the price of petroleum products, that has the effect of
triggering price rises on transportation, food and rent. That is for
those who earn salaries, but there are many who are jobless and will be
affected by it.”

Buhari also said that the lack of security, sabotage, vandalism,
corruption and mismanagement, not necessarily subsidies, were the most
serious problems of Nigeria’s oil sector.

He promised to deal decisively with all identified problems in the oil and gas sector.

“We have to go back to the good old days of transparency and accountability,” the president said.

Buhari directed NNPC to review existing agreements for the crude oil
swaps with a view to injecting more honesty and transparency into the
process to reduce costs.

He also asked NNPC’s management to do more to improve the supply of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

Buhari also assured investors in the oil and gas sector that his
administration would implement far-reaching reforms to boost
accountability and transparency in Nigeria's oil and gas industry.

The president made the statement when he held a meeting with senior
officials of Chevron led by the company’s President for Africa and Latin
America, Mr. Ali Moshiri.

Buhari stated that his administration was ready to effectively address the challenges in the sector.

“We understand the situation in the industry and we will do our best to
address the challenges affecting exploration, production and
distribution of oil products in the country,” he told the delegation.